In a recent interview with The Cut, Jenna Ortega finally breaks her silence on her Scream 7 exit. We were told it was due to either pay or scheduling conflicts intially, but it was always suspected her decision not to return was due to the firing of Melissa Barrera...and that seems to officially and 100% be the case.
Most audiences associate Ortega with bringing a new generation of fans to properties that got their start in the past millennium. In the two most recent installments of the rebooted Scream franchise, she survived Ghostface. Fans rooted for her to return, but in November 2023, news broke that Ortega was leaving the next film. “It had nothing to do with pay or scheduling,” says Ortega, despite initial reports to the contrary. By the time she’d decided to leave, she says, her Scream VI directors, Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, had already exited the film. “It was all kind of falling apart,” she continues. “If Scream VII wasn’t going to be with that team of directors and those people I fell in love with, then it didn’t seem like the right move for me in my career at the time.”
An interesting footnote at the end of the article seems to clarify everything.
An earlier, longer version of this piece included details about Melissa Barrera’s firing from the Scream franchise. The story has since been edited.
Source: The Cut
